Process Structures: The 2nd Way To Be MECE In Case Interviews
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 มิ.ย. 2024
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The MECE principle (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive) is the most famous principle in management consulting.
It is used every single day by McKinsey, BCG and Bain consultants to structure their client's problems just like you see in case interviews.
When I was preparing for my case interviews I was constantly afraid I was not being MECE when solving my cases. Everyone told me that I should be MECE: Victor Cheng, Case in Point, and all the other "experts".
But one thing they did not tell me was HOW to be MECE.
In this video, I'm sharing with you The 2nd Way To Be MECE: Process Structures. This means you're using the stages of a process that underlies the problem to create your MECE structure.
This video is a follow-on from another video, The 5 Ways To Be MECE, which are 5 practical techniques you can use to create your own customized frameworks.
Process Structures are the least used core structuring technique, but one that will get you out of a ton of difficult situations.
They're the first thing that comes to mind every time a management consultant from McKinsey, Bain, BCG and other top consulting firms has to solve an operational problem: a hiring problem, a sales problem, a manufacturing problem.
But you can also use process structures for problems that you wouldn't think have an underlying process to them. Pollution, migration, customer satisfaction, for example. These things don't have a formal process assigned to them but they do have things that usually happen to them that are usually in a certain order.
And breaking down this process is a quick, intuitive way to make a mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive structure to solve those cases.
Tell me in the comments if you've liked this video and what you've liked about it.
Table of contents (so you can find stuff later in the future):
01:56 - Examples of Process Structures
08:44 - How to use Process Structures
17:24 - Things to be aware of when using Process Structures
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Hope the best for your case interview preparation and I'll see you on the next video :)
Bruno
Music in the video:
"Funk Game Loop" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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Interviewed at McKinsey: they asked me which elements affect the perceived quality of an airport. I've provided several good explanations, yet I was rejected because I didn't follow a structured process in the provision of the answer, such as following a typical customer journey (this is not just a hypothesis, it was confirmed to me at the telephone in the rejection). Sad story, yet it taught me a lesson!
Hey Serpolinidate - sad story indeed, but at least now you know and can move on and not make the same mistake again.
As I mentioned in the video, this is one of the most useful, yet least used types of structures. A shame other resources don't really mention it.
I recently had a case about a company whose steel mill was becoming unprofitable and I had to diagnose the problem. I was unable to find the answer which was that the intermediary used to negotiate raw material prices could be done in house. This framework would have been perfect for this!
Excellent. Ive read Sttategic Problem Solving ny Arnaud Chevalier and this is a great way of solving problems
Bruno - Thank you! I enjoyed your brief on this subject. I hope to contribute via comments in the future.
Thanks Bruno these videos are awesome!
Excellent!! It really creates value!!
Hi, fantastic content. Could you please quantify the impact of cars on environment in each of the stage you mentioned. It will be great if you may thoroughly analyse that problem and show us the probable solution.
Great content. Indeed, not taught in other resources! Keep doing the great job and thanks!
Hey Ekaterina, I'm super glad this is helpful! It's a shame candidates go to their interviews without knowing that many problems can be structured as steps of a process because this specific technique is so versatile to many problems that wouldn't fit a framework. Keep up your good work! Bruno
Fantastic, haven't seen this anywhere else. Thanks Bruno :)
You're welcome rondovk!
It's a shame no one talks about Process Structures - they're one of the most versatile ways to structure problems.
Good video. I would distinguish between “Process” and “Lifecycle” structure. Your automobile impact example is more of a lifecycle analysis.
Hi Bruno, thank you for this nice video. I want to add a further benefit of "the process structure" in addition to being MECE: For linear/ or linearizable processes, this structure also gives you a suggestion of ORDERING your findings. More precisely, identifying the MECE buckets A, C, and B it also naturally provides a LOGICAL order in which you present them: first A, then B, and lastly C.
Here is my example for which I wish I had practiced the natural way to structure a problem from your video: "Imagine it is the year 2005 and your client (a car manufacturer) asks you to help him to design a ppt-slide for the board to tell them a little bit about digitalization. What would you advise?"
Instead of thinking of a process like the lifecycle of a car or the value chain, I came up with all sorts of business functions that I considered impactable by digitalization. The feedback I received was that my ideas were good, but my presentation lacked a logical structure.
Great Video Bruno!
Love it. Thank you !!
Hi Bruno! Excellent Content! I have a question- What if we are not aware of the process? Like when we are given a topic which we don't have a process knowledge on. In that case, can we ask the Interviewer?
most likely, I mean would they say no?
Olá Bruno! Obrigado pelos vídeos!! I have gone through the telco customer satisfaction example, as if I were in a case interview and I have a question:
Thinking of the problem as a process, allowed me to come up with the mentioned buckets and therefore, with a MECE structure. I was super happy about the approach.
After bulding the buckets, I see that there are other aspects I believe could justify lower satisfaction rates and that I wanted to include:
This would be 1) the price (Hyp. maybe it has gone up in the meanwhile) and 2) the competitors moves(Hyp. maybe they augmented the coverage or data limits and/or maybe they started charging lower prices, which made our customers feel less satisfied about our service even though nothing changed with it).
Now, to sort this out I was thinking I could use the 4 buckets that were found out after mapping the process and add the other two since they dont fit in any other box:
Now would this still be a MECE structure then and how would you advise me to go about it? I am not sure if it is a good approach, and/or I'm missing something here.
Hello Bruno, this is probably the 3rd time that I'm watching this video and I must say your content is exceptionally good and full of amazing insights. I totally agree that a big majority of people would most likely fail to structure a logical approach to the first 3 questions you mentioned in the video.
Thank you guys both for creating such great content. I hope with your help and some self practice I will be able to pass my interview which is roughly in 3 weeks :)
Cheers!
Hey seuzer,
I'm so glad the content is helpful to the point that you're watching this video for the 3rd time (and I hope you're not watching it multiple times due to a lack of clarity somewhere)!
Make sure you join our free course if you haven't already. If this video has helped you, I think that course is gonna help you even more.
And let me know how your interviews go! Feel free to comment here or send me an e-mail (if you're in the free course you know what it is).
Cheers!
CraftingCases I have already completed your free course, just left some drills for practice purposes later on, and I cannot thank you guys enough for giving free access to such a great content.
The reason I’m watching this for the 3rd time is just to refresh my mind :)
In case you might be wondering my membership name is Azadi Firat :)
@@seuzer
Hello seuzer!
if you don't mind, can I know how can I get access to these free courses that you are talking about?
@@seuzer did you pass?
@@mosespsalm_1108 Hey, unfortunately I did not end up getting a job offer from that company and my life progressed in a different direction. I never knew what was the actual reason they did not offer me the position, as I was just sent a generic HR response that is sent to everybody.
Regardless of the outcome, I absolutely loved the content these guys are creating and even bought their structuring drills content. I learnt so much from them in terms of how to be an analytical thinker and how to come up with custom made solutions to pretty much any question that may come in your way. Having spent hundreds of hours back then to my final round interview with the partners, I can easily say that Bruno and Julio's content was the most insightful and unique one.
I hope you will get the job offer and become a successful consultant! :)
Hi, I was interviewed at McKinsey and I had a very similar problem, the only difference was that instead of a telco company it was an internet provider but they asked about low customer satisfaction levels. Indeed, after I framework the case, they gave me a graph to analyze, and in this graph, I had in the Y-axis de amount of unsatisfied clients and in the Y-axis time, and it clearly marked all the events that you showed in the events that can drop customer satisfaction! Even though I didn't freak out, I still felt that my preparation using Victor Cheng's material really failed to tackle this problem in a good way.
Thank you very much for this amazing material!
You’re welcome! Glad our content was on the spot for you 😄
did you find this video before or after your interview ? And were you successful ?
Awesome videos super helpful!
Superb Video!
Very nice content!
Hello Bruno, thank you for the great content! I'm having an interview with a softdrink bottling company in Europe for a trainee position. The position is in sales & marketing, and the interview is going to be a fact finding assessment (I guess it's sort of a variation of case interview?)
What types of cases should I focus on? Thank you!
Best :)
Hey Bruno, Love the videos. Quick question: How do you know what the processes are if you have no idea about that industry?
Make guesses + interview your interviewers (ask them questions in a linear way so that you understand the process -- and make explicit to them that you don't know the industry and you're doing this to create your structure).
Phenomenal video, do you take donations? Your channel is incredible
Check their paid course even better content
Hi Bruno! your video serious is very helpful to me as a student, I have one question regarding how to write an issue tree for this problem "What makes a good problem-solving methodology" can you help on this to generate an issue tree?
Do you want me to do all the work on one of the toughest questions there is? Show me your work and I'll pitch in.
CraftingCases hi Bruno I have draft how can I send to you?
@@dilanudayakumara3347 Post here.
@@CraftingCases complete beginner attempt: hypothesis is that a good solving method is one that "helps you understand problem, helps you construct a hypothesis, helps you gather data to support your hypothesis, helps you synthesize your findings"
How to identify the root cause of the problem?
Should we do a process of creating hypothesis and testing them, right?
Yes, usually you want to find the numerical root cause first (it it’s a numerical problem), by splitting up the numbers, then to a brainstorming of potential causes for the specific numerical root cause to find the teal root cause, then hypothesis-test those hypotheses to find the problem
18:10
can you ask the interviewer "what are the steps in the cash collection cycle?"
Yep. Even better if you can suggest some that you see as likely ones (so you don’t offset the whole work to them).
@@CraftingCases Thank you so much!! I really appreciate your content.
10-47 LMAO)))
haha, nice go at Victor Cheng
10:47 thank me later ;-)
good e.g. at 7:10 .. electric cars are not 100% clean because producing lithium batteries is very polluting
Lmao Another victor cheng 😂😂😂